


My Sister

by TeekiJane



Series: The Boys of Summer [18]
Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeekiJane/pseuds/TeekiJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before he goes off for camp, Matt makes one last effort to really get Haley’s attention…for the first time in a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Sister

_She’s got a wall around her no one can climb_  
_She lets her ladder down for those who really shine_  
_I tried to scale it, but to me she’s blind_  
_So I lit a firecracker, went off in my eye_  
Juliana Hatfield, My Sister

**Matt**

I really hadn’t wanted to go to camp this year. Just like last year, my mom and dad signed me up without asking. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy camp so much as there was just so much more going on at home these days. Now that I was in high school, I had a bunch of friends who could drive—and a girlfriend. I was afraid of what would happen if I left Lydia alone for a couple weeks. After all, I know that most of the guys at Stamford School for the Deaf thought she was a real catch. 

I’d had my goodbye with Lydia and the guys the night before. I was leaving first thing in the morning. Mom and Dad were out running “last minute errands.” In other words, they were shopping for all the stuff that I needed that I’d refused to cooperate with—clothes, mostly. I’d thought I was alone in the house—usually on a Saturday Haley is either at work or she’s with _Byron_ or _Jordan_.

This deserves the italics for a specific reason. Ever since Haley started hanging out with Byron, she hasn’t had the time of day for me. It’s actually pretty backwards if you think about it. Before that, she spent a lot more time out of the house. And when she was home, she had a ton of friends that were always hanging around the house being girly with her. But she’d still managed to find time for us to do stuff together. 

That wasn’t true anymore. I can’t think of the last time when she’d voluntarily spent more than five minutes in the same room as me when there wasn’t a dinner table between us. 

I’d been packing what I could—trying to get as much of that over with—when suddenly the floor began vibrating. That could only mean one thing: Haley was home and she thought she was alone. She’d turned the volume up as high as it would go on the downstairs stereo. 

I made my way downstairs to see what she was doing. She wasn’t in the living room or dining room. I finally found her in the least likely spot—the kitchen. My mom says one of these days she’s going to finally teach Haley the difference between the oven and the stove. 

So it was pretty surprising to find her standing over the stove, stirring something when I entered the kitchen. I tapped her on the shoulder and she startled, flinging her spoon and causing something hot and chocolaty to splatter everywhere. She gave me an annoyed look for a moment. “Jesus, Matt,” she signed, “You scared the shit out of me.” 

I shrugged. “Sorry,” I said, looking over the mess she’d made. I grabbed a sponge. “What are you making?” 

“Fudge.” 

“Why?” 

She wiped at a splatter of fudge on her forehead, changing it from a tiny dot to huge smear. I tried not to laugh. “Jordan and I are going on a picnic and we decided to make all our own food.” 

I swiped the wet sponge at a chocolate spot on the back splash and then pointed out the window. “You’re going on a picnic today? It’s supposed to rain all day.” Everything outside was gray and dreary and the humidity was about 100 percent. I was surprised it wasn’t already raining. 

“I know.” Haley picked the spoon off the floor and rinsed it. “We decided to have our picnic in the living room on the floor on a blanket.” 

I didn’t tell her how stupid I thought that was. Instead I asked, “What else are you making? Can I help?” 

She stirred her fudge some more, frowning at the consistency, then turned back to me. “You really want to help?” she asked me. 

No, not really, but it was an excuse not to pack. Plus, maybe I could actually get her talking. “Sure. What do you want me to do?” 

She gestured to the collection of sandwich ingredients on the other counter. “Make some cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for me?” she asked. 

I eyed the cream cheese and jelly. The problem with ASL is that you can’t talk and do stuff at the same time. Haley had been trying to stir and talk to me all at once, and she’d been doing more talking than stirring. I couldn’t really talk to her as I made the sandwiches unless I wanted there to be as much cream cheese strewn everywhere as there was fudge. With a small sigh, I nodded. “How many sandwiches do you want?” 

Haley waited until I was done signing and resumed stirring, gesturing over her shoulder. “Four. No, five.” 

I flew through the sandwiches and stacked them on a plate before Haley poured her fudge into a pan to cool. She poked at it with one finger. “I got this recipe from Vanessa,” she said, “We made it one time when we were little. But somehow, this doesn’t look right.” She was right; it was pasty and not smooth the way fudge batter should be. I shrugged at her. I wasn’t too surprised, to be honest. “Oh well. At least Jordan can cook. He’s making cookies and bringing some chips. I think all we’re missing is some lemonade.” She opened the freezer and pulled out a can of concentrate. “That’s something even _I_ can’t screw up.” 

She poured the lemon goop and water into a pitcher and began stirring, but I knew she could see me out of the corner of her eye. “If you know Jordan’s bringing cookies, why’d you even bother trying to make fudge?” 

Haley grimaced. “I really love fudge?” she said, but the look on her face told me that that wasn’t the whole story. I shook my head at her and crossed my arms across my chest. “Okay, okay,” she said, looking irritated. “I’ve got terrible PMS and chocolate is the only cure.” 

I made a disgusted face and she almost smiled. “Hey, you asked. Be glad you’re a guy and don’t have to deal with that.” She stirred the lemonade a few more times and then put it into the fridge. Haley’s tiny twitch of a smile grew a tiny bit bigger. “How much do you want to bet I didn’t get all the chunks of lemon stirred out?” she asked. I grinned back at her. 

I rinsed the sponge I had used earlier and swiped at more chocolate stains spread everywhere. Haley threw all the extra ingredients into the fridge and then watched me work. I couldn’t read her expression. “Why are you doing this?” she finally asked. 

“You made a mess. I’m just cleaning it up for you.” 

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Why are you helping me?” She stared me down. 

I couldn’t figure out why she was so defensive. “You have a problem with me wanting to spend time with you?” 

Haley raised one eyebrow. She looked suspicious. “What’s in it for you?” 

Did she seriously think I was only spending time with her to get something out of it? “The pleasure of your company? I never see you anymore.” 

She didn’t seem moved. “Yeah, well, that’s because you’re always too busy for me,” she signed. 

What was she talking about? I gave her my best puzzled expression. “I think you have it backwards. You’re the one who never has time for me. Ever since you started hanging out with Byron, it’s been like I don’t exist.” My family has made signs for frequently used names. Byron’s is a book made out of two letter Bs, opening and closing. Haley spends a lot less time at dinner talking about Jordan—I don’t blame her; I don’t talk to Mom and Dad about me and Lydia, either. But in any case, Jordan didn’t have a sign yet. 

She turned her head to one side, looking me dead on. She looked a little sad, but like she was trying to hide it. “I know I kinda pulled away right at that time. I went a little bit nuts but it didn’t have anything to do with Byron.” I gave her a look. “You’re going to have to trust me on that, okay, Matt? But anyway, by the time I got back into my right mind, you were off with your new friends.” 

I thought about that. That was the year I started seventh grade and moved from the elementary school building to the high school building. There were so many more activities there—sports and clubs. I’d joined the soccer team and met a whole bunch of interesting people. Haley was right; I could remember one day when she’d come to my room and asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with her and I’d told her that I couldn’t. And then the next weekend I’d been too busy to help her with something else. “I guess you’re right,” I admitted. 

Haley sighed. “You’re right, too. There were times I definitely didn’t want to talk to you. You had such an interesting life sometimes, compared to mine. You were making friends and going to parties and coming home with hickeys,” she emphasized this by poking me in the neck. “Meanwhile, I was at home, locked in my bedroom, afraid of the world, trying to poke Byron out of the closet.” 

I frowned a moment before I was able to translate that. Another problem with ASL is that it’s not set up the same as written English. Haley had literally signed that Byron was in the closet, as if someone had locked him into the kitchen pantry; it took me forever to realize she was using a euphemism. She’s fluent but sometimes she throws me for a loop like that; it’s not something a deaf person would have done. After I managed to work through that, I went back to something she’d said earlier. “What in the world do you have to be afraid of?” 

She collapsed into a chair. “Everything,” she said. I gestured to her to go on, but she shook her head. “Please, don’t ask. I don’t have the energy to explain. Let’s just say that I’m scared of everything you have.” 

Haley rubbed her eyes and I could see she was getting ready to cry. “What do I have that you don’t these days?” I asked. She had me totally bewildered. 

She shook her head and put her hands to her temples. After a moment of avoided eye contact, she looked back at me, her mouth twisted up. She started shaking and then I realized she was laughing. “You’re right!” she announced. “I even have the fucking hickey. Want to see?” Before I could say no, she pulled her t-shirt away from her neck and bared her breastbone, where she did indeed have a small hickey. I shook my head at her, pretending I was so disappointed. She stood up from her chair and gave me a hug. “I love you, little brother,” she said. “Thanks for reminding me that I’m not a total failure at life.” 

Despite the fact that she was no longer upset, she’d squeezed out a couple of tears. I pointed to her face. “What’s with the crying?” I asked. 

Haley wiped the tears out of her eyes. “I told you. PMS. The only upside to it is that you can use it as an excuse for everything.” She turned away from me for a minute and looked at the clock on the stove. “Jordan’s going to be here in about twenty minutes. Did you want to join us for our picnic?” 

I turned my head to the side for a moment. “You’re really going to have an indoor picnic? I assumed when you said that that it was just an excuse to have sex on the living room floor.” 

She reached out and smacked me playfully. “Matt! Ew!” 

I ignored the whack to the arm. “Why not? I’d do it.” 

It was her turn to ignore me. “So do you want to join us or not? I’ll teach Jordan a few signs so you won’t be left out of the conversation.” Something was distracting her and she was talking without paying attention. “He’s really good with his hands.” Something must have changed on the music she was listening to, because Haley started bouncing her head in rhythm and she looked like she was whistling. 

I waited her out. “If Jordan’s that ‘good with his hands’ then I don’t think I want him around my big sister.” 

Haley ignored me again. She started singing along with the music this time. A short time later she quit and looked at me expectantly. “I’ll come to your picnic if you do me one favor.” 

I had her full attention now. “I’d say, ‘Sure, anything,’ but you’ve been scaring me slightly today. What’s your demand?” 

“Make Jordan a sign so I don’t have to keep spelling his name.” 

She smiled. “That’s easy.” She made fists and stuck out her pinkies. She drew a heart shape on her chest with them. She’d literally said that Jordan was a heart—and I knew she meant _her_ heart. I made a gagging face and she wrinkled her nose. “Hey, if you wanted something less mushy, you should have been more specific.” 

I opened the door to the fridge. “If I’m going to eat with you, we’re going to need more sandwiches.” Haley was once again ignoring me, but this time it was because she wasn’t paying attention rather than because I was being dirty. She was singing again. I stopped and watched her. After a while she noticed me staring and became self-conscious. Not only did she stop singing, but she closed herself off, holding her body away from me. I smiled at her. “I really wish I could hear you. Everyone says you have a beautiful voice.” 

Haley didn’t change her posture. She did sigh. “Just my luck, huh? I only have one talent in life and I can’t share it with you.” 

I pulled the sandwich fixings out of the fridge again. “I’m sure you have lots of talents, Haley. Maybe you just haven’t found them yet.” 

She bit her lip and shook her head. Rather than responding to my point, she changed the subject. “Do you like football?” she asked. 

I tried to follow her thought process and failed. “Yes, but why?” 

“I was always trying to get Byron to go to football games with me. And while he never minded watching it on television, I could never get him to go out to the school to watch one in person. I’m bound and determined to go to every home game this year. You wanna be my football buddy?” 

I nodded and was going to answer that when the lights flashed. Haley’s face lit up and she smiled in a way I hadn’t seen her smile in a very long time. “He’s early,” she signed. 

I watched her walk out of the room. I wondered what happened to the Haley I remembered—the one she had been for a fleeting second just now. I guess it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I was going to get a chance to know the Haley she’d become…and I was going to start as soon as I got back from camp.

**Author's Note:**

> Coming soon in _The Boys of Summer_  
>  Byron gets stuck in the middle…and in the bathroom.  
> Jordan faces the music.  
> It’s Family Dinner time at the Spier-Schafer house!
> 
> Story 16 just about killed me...I had terrible writer's block over what amounted to three sentences in the finished work. Luckily, I'm nearly done with school for the quarter (yay!) and I'm on vacation this week (double yay!) I was going to finish my school work today and go through and fix a few errors I've found in all my works (like how I need to fix the spelling of Lindsey and how I quite obviously used mind instead of mine in a song.) I have a thorough outline of what's going on through story 22 but I plan to sit down and map out pretty much the rest of the series. I'm going to guess there will end up being somewhere between thirty and forty stories when this comes to a close.


End file.
